Visit with Grandma and Grampa Hellen

What a weekend!! On Thursday Paul's parents made a trip to Houston to visit us. Their flight was delayed due to bad weather here in Houston. They were suppose to arrive into Houston at 2:45PM, but actually arrived around 8:30PM. On Friday after a big breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, and french toast we headed off to Brenham for some ice cream and to check out the mini horses. Our first stop was the Blue Bell ice cream factory, which I must admit, the best part of which was the tasting at the end. The tour was fairly short, and limited, but you were able to see them packaging some of the ice cream and storing it (they claimed it takes the milk from 50,000 cows to support one day of Blue Bell ice cream production) . Once finished at the ice cream plant it was time to go for a little walk around the old downtown before heading off to lunch. Brenham is a neat little town full of antique shops and other knick-knack type stores. Lunch was a restaraunt made to look like an old time saloon. Nathan drank a bottle of root beer straight from a bottle which seemed to be quite exciting for him. After we finished lunch it was time to head back to the car to go to the Monestary of St. Clare (i.e. Poor Clares) to look at some miniature horses that they raise to support themselves. It was kind a disappointment, I thought. Neat to see all of the horses, but there was cat in the barn that had open soars and was in need of being put out of its misery. The gift shop seemed pretty sparse and not as exciting as the brochure made it sound. The kids enjoyed looking for rocks, picking flowers, and finding locusts' shells. Once finished at the farm we headed back on the road to find a roadside market in Hempsted (the name escapes me). Once we found the market we bought some watermelon (grown locally), bananas, peanuts, and fresh ears of corn. Then with children asleep in the car it was time to go home!!!

Future owner of Blue Bell!!

note that everyone in the picture has their mouth open!!

Saturday after breakfast we went to a local fishing hole that did not have much fish. We caught a few perch, and that is about it. Nathan fed the duck a few worms and we were super HOT and ready to go home. On the way home we bought drinks at Sonic to help and cool us off. At the house we had watermelon, played in the back yard and just relaxed.

waiting and waiting for a bite...

FINALLY!!!

Sunday it was off to church, breakfast at a local café and home to swim in the pool. After the pool we came back to the house where we just relaxed and played a few games. Bocce ball was played quite a bit and there was even a game or two of baseball played in the back yard. There was a nice rainstorm which brought a fairly large frog, that Paul thought he stunned or killed as it would not jump away after he picked it up and then tried to release it, but eventually it fled our front garden to the back yard where all of the rest of the frogs seemed to have ended up. Then for dinner we tried to order a pizza but it took almost and hour and a half, which arrived too late as Paul’s parents had to get on a plane to fly back to OKC. That was about all of our weekend!! I hope your weekend was as enjoyable!!